Suchergebnisse

This book investigates how people in countries with different medical and educational systems understand numerical and graphical information, which presentation formats help them better understand the information, and how they use the data to make decisions.

The literature on human-computer interaction consistently stresses the importance of reducing the cognitive effort required by users who interact with a computer in order to improve the experience and enhance usability and comprehension. Applying this perspective to web surveys, questionnaire designers are advised to strive for layouts that facilitate the response process and reduce the effort required to select an answer. In this article, we examine whether placing the answer boxes (i.e., radio buttons or check boxes) to the left or to the right of the answer options in closed questions with vertically arranged response categories enhances usability and facilitates responding. First, we discuss a set of opposing principles of how respondents may process these types of questions in web surveys, some suggesting placing the answer boxes to the left and others suggesting placing them to the right side of the answer options. Second, we report an eye-tracking experiment that examined whether web survey responding is best described by one or another of these principles, and consequently whether one of the three layouts is preferable in terms of usability: (1) answer boxes to the left of left-aligned answer options, (2) answer boxes to the right of left-aligned answer options, and (3) answer boxes to the right of right-aligned answer options. Our results indicate that the majority of respondents conform to a principle suggesting placing the answer boxes to the left of left-aligned answer options. Moreover, respondents require less cognitive effort (operationalized by response latencies, fixation times, fixation counts, and number of gaze switches between answer options and answer boxes) to select an answer in this layout.

AbstractGraphs facilitate the communication of important quantitative information, often serving as effective decision support tools. Yet, graphs are not equally useful for all individuals, as people differ substantially in their graph literacy—the ability to understand graphically presented information. Although some features of graphs can be interpreted using spatial‐to‐conceptual mappings that can be established by adults and children with no graphing experience (e.g., "higher bars equal larger quantities"), other features are linked to arbitrary graph conventions (e.g., axes labels and scales). In two experiments, we examined differences in the processes underlying the comprehension of graphs presenting medical information in individuals with low and high graph literacy. Participants' eye movements were recorded while they interpreted graphs in which information in conventional features was incongruent with that conveyed by spatial features. Results revealed that participants with low graph literacy more often relied on misleading spatial‐to‐conceptual mappings and misinterpreted the data depicted. Higher graph literacy was often associated with more time spent viewing the conventional features containing essential information for accurate interpretations. This suggests that individuals with high graph literacy are better able to identify the task‐relevant information in graphs, and thus attend to the relevant features to a larger extent. Theoretical, methodological, and prescriptive implications for customization of decision‐support systems are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Many online surveys offer the chance to win prizes as a primary incentive for respondents. One researcher found that prepaid monetary incentives were the most effective technique for increasing response rates, however, other researchers showed that a prize incentive outperformed other incentive types in a web-based survey. Using the immediacy effect and supporting theories as a base, this study extends the research on using prize draws as an effective incentive for web surveys by investigating the effects of immediate versus delayed notification for prize draw winners. Results indicate that the immediate notification of prize draw results did significantly increase response rates to the survey over the delayed notification, receipt of results, and control groups.

SignificanceMuch of online conversation today consists of signaling ones political identity. Although many signals are obvious to everyone, others are covert, recognizable to ones ingroup while obscured from the outgroup. This type of covert identity signaling is critical for collaborations in a diverse society, but measuring covert signals has been difficult, slowing down theoretical development. We develop a method to detect covert and overt signals in tweets posted before the 2020 US presidential election and use a behavioral experiment to test predictions of a mathematical theory of covert signaling. Our results show that covert political signaling is more common when the perceived audience is politically diverse and open doors to a better understanding of communication in politically polarized societies.

Abstract
Traditionally, election polls have asked for participants' own voting intentions. In four elections, we previously found that we could improve predictions by asking participants how they thought their social circles would vote. A potential concern is that the social-circle question might predict results less well in elections with larger numbers of political options because it becomes harder to accurately track how social contacts plan to vote. However, we now find that the social-circle question performs better than the own-intention question in predicting two elections with many political parties: The Netherlands' 2017 general election and the Swedish 2018 general election.